Ric i have to admit i was surprised given what you know of Water current an location of airplane pieces spotted by and around lagoon that yous never never searched the most likely area debris would have come to rest i.e between nessie and NC debris
Obviously i know it ok me saying an pointing this out now like, am just intrested in the thought process you's used when searching
It's a fair question Richie and I'm happy to answer it.
First of all, unlike previous TIGHAR searches, this one was contracted out to a company whose business is to conduct underwater remote-sensing searches and recoveries. We told them where we wanted to search. Our primary search area was the reef slope from Nessie south to the Norwich City. If nothing was found there we wanted to cover the entire reef slope down to 1,500 meters from the NW tip of the island down to well south of the shipwreck. It was the contractor's job to select the technology and then design and carry out the search. For this they were paid a great deal of money - in advance. TIGHAR's role was to provide technical representatives to assist the contractor "with the identification of TIGHAR identified recovery targets during the search operation."
The plan recommended by the contractor and agreed to by TIGHAR was a three-step process:
• First, the multi-beam sonar aboard KOK would map the reef slope. Multi-beam sonar does not have sufficient resolution to find wreckage but mapping the entire perimeter of the island would only take a few hours and would provide a good basic map to work from for the detailed side-scan sonar search.
• Next, an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) equipped with side-scan sonar would begin surveying the western reef slope. After each AUV mission, the contractor would examine the sonar data collected and identify promising targets.
• Finally, the targets would be investigated with video cameras mounted on a Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) provided by a subcontractor.
We figured we could cover the entire area in 10 days of searching.
That was the plan, but the transit to the island took longer than expected and we arrived with only 8 days to spend on-site. The multi-beam mapping went well but the first two days were wasted trying to get the AUV to work. At that point I was tempted to cancel it’s use altogether and do all the searching by “mowing the lawn” with the ROV. The contractor insisted on continuing to try to get the AUV working - so we made a deal. The contractor and his people would work with the AUV at night and I would take over the ROV search working with the ROV subcontractor during the day checking out targets the contractor identified in the side-scan data and otherwise “mowing the lawn” in the primary search area.
Our first operational ROV dive was Dive 3 on July 14. We started just below Nessie and explored southward along the shelf at the base of the first cliff. Jeff Glickman later spotted the “Fender” in the HD video from that part of Dive 3 but we couldn’t see HD video in real time. When got down to the area behind Norwich City we started seeing ship wreckage and went deeper. We made our way northward and started “mowing the lawn” up and down the reef slope in the area directly below the Nessie location.
Dive 4 later that day was aborted because of a generator failure.
Dive 5 on July 15 chased six side-scan targets identified by the contractor as worthy of investigation. All turned out to be either coral boulders or Norwich City wreckage.
Dives 6 and 7 on July 16 were spent in amongst the Norwich City stern wreckage trying to find the “wing” target and mowing the lawn in that area.
Dive 8 on July 17 was spent rescuing the AUV from the cave.
Dive 9 on July 18 was another attempt to find the “wing.”
Dive 10 on July 18 investigated an “almost certainly man-made” target identified by the contractor off the NW tip of the island. It was a rock.
Dive 11 on July 18 was yet another attempt to conclusively identify the “wing.”
Dive 12 on July 18 resumed “mowing the lawn” in the area behind Nessie. This is the closest we ever got to the anomaly. Had we known the target was there we certainly would have continued to run those lines and check it out.
Dive 13 on July 19 (our last day) we were out of ideas. We made another excursion along the base of the first cliff but found nothing.
Dive 14 on July 19 , a deep dive from the Norwich City wreckage to below the nessie location was our final dive.